At first the dichotomy was clear, and my emotions rose in accordance with the speaker's intent. I joined the speaker's side for a moment: health care reform is about changing laws in order to bring about the greatest good, not about wrangling over whether the elephant or the donkey makes for a better mascot. Right?
Then, as the voice of the pundits faded in the background like the whah-whah-whah of Charlie Brown's teacher, I reflected on this comment. I've heard it before, in many guises: law and politics are two separate spheres for which one can get educated, train, and work in purity. Lawyers study and enact law; politicians work the angles and sway opinion. I think most of us view the central task of government as maintaining the former and discouraging the latter. After a few moments of thought, however, I remembered that the dichotomy is false.
I work full-time for an organization which has, as one of its missions, to articulate and maintain community standards of behavior (also known as Law). For the duration of my career, I will sit on a legislative body which has the difficult responsibility of responding to the needs of our community with decisions designed to bring about the greater good. As we do this valuable work, however, I have noticed something.
Very often individual members of this legislative body will make proposals and cast votes based on their concern for how their words will affect perceptions of them as individuals. The imagined responses of others--especially those closest to us--also weigh on our minds. The sharpest crises in this body come about when a decision by the body might be received negatively by family and friends (which serve as de facto "constituencies," though our voter base is uniform and broad), even if the value of the decision seems clear. As individuals (and, to some extent, as a body), we are guided by how our decisions will affect personal relationships within the larger community (also known as Politics). We are all still middle-schoolers, worrying about whether what we say will get us accepted or ostracized.
Like the radio pundit I heard yesterday, I think many of us would like to sever the connection between law and politics. Like Socrates calling people out of the cave, some would like to say that once we live in the light of the law of reason, we can dispense with the shadows of politics. (And those who live by the shadows of politics would say that trying to live in the light of law just makes us blind.) History tells us, however, that the ones who try to pull the two apart end up drinking hemlock.
Like the braided reality of body and soul, law and politics are husband and wife become one flesh. The voices that proclaim one ought to be sacrificed to the other perhaps have not handled the complexities of the relationship. The whole will die with the loss of one. And to work for the good of one means to work with the other. Or perhaps law and politics are even more closely related, like the two halves of a strand of DNA. One cannot survive without the other.
What does this mean for health care reform? It means that those interested in doing the real work of reform must be interested both in changing standards (law) and in conversing with others to reach agreement (politics). This is, I am sure, old news to legislators and, I am becoming convinced, difficult news for sensationalist pundits to swallow. For those of us who sit on the sidelines, write letters, and talk about how health care is going to hell in a hand basket, it means that demonizing one side or the other leaves us limping away from every conversation. We also have to recognize that participating in democratic legislative processes is harder work than we want to admit; and like all areas victim to punditry, we too easily condemn the players and too infrequently step on the field ourselves.
We follow a god who decided to leave the abstract of heaven and enter into the grit of earthy human life. We follow a god who spoke truth about how human beings were called to live but allowed others to have their way even when that way did not follow the truth. We follow a god who lives in the tension between abstract idea and relational connection, and who brings new health out of the pain of sacrifice. Perhaps this god can lead us even in the arena of health care reform; perhaps this god can show us a better way than trying to sever the matrimonial bonds of democracy.
~emrys
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